then to the other to shake hands.  No names were mentioned.  Our hostess said, by way of general announcement, “La maestra,” and having started me up the maze left me to unwind myself.  So I zigzagged along with a hand-shake and a decorous “Buenas noches” to everybody till I found myself at the end of the line at an open window.  Here one of those little oblong tables, across which the Filipinos are fond of talking, separated me from a lady, unquestionably of the white races, who received the distinction of personal mention.  She was “la Gobernadora,” and her husband, a fat Chino mestizo, was immediately brought forward and introduced as “el Gobernador.”  He was a man of education and polish, having spent fourteen years in school in Spain, where he married his wife.  After having welcomed me properly, he betook himself to the room at the head of the stairs where the men were congregated.  A fat native priest in a greasy old cassock seemed the centre of jollity there, and he alternately joked with the men and stopped to extend his hand to the children who went up and kissed it.

I did my best to converse intelligently with the Gobernadora and the other ladies who were within conversational distance.  A band came up outside and played “Just One Girl,” and presently one of the ladies of the house invited the Governor’s wife and me to partake of sweets.  We went out to the dining-room, where a table was laid with snow-white cloth, and prettily decorated with flowers and with crystal dishes containing goodies.

There were, first of all, meringues, which we call French kisses, the favorite sweet here.  There was also flaon, which we would call baked custard.  In the absence of ovens they do not bake it, but they boil it in a mould like an ice-cream brick.  They line the mould with caramel, and the custard comes out golden brown, smooth as satin, and delicately flavored with the caramel.  Then there was nata, which is like boiled custard unboiled, and there were all sorts of crystallized fruits—­pineapple, lemon, orange, and citron, together with that peculiar one they call santol.  There were also the transparent, jelly-like seeds of the nipa palm, boiled in syrup till they looked like magnified balls of sago or tapioca.

I partook of these rich delicacies, though my soul was hungering for a piece of broiled steak, and I accepted a glass of muscatel, which is the accepted ladies’ wine here.  My hostesses were eager that I should try all kinds of foods, and a refusal to accept met with a protest, “Otra clase, otra clase.”  Then the Gobernadora and I went back to the sala, and another group took our places at the refreshment table.

I was much interested in the babies, who were strutting about in their finest raiment and were unquestionably annoyed at its restrictions.  Filipino babies are sharp-eyed, black-polled, attractive little creatures.  Whether of high or low degree, their ordinary dress is adapted to the climate, and consists usually of a single low-necked garment, which drapes itself picturesquely across the shoulders like the cloaks of Louis the Fourteenth’s time seen on the stage.